Teaching in the Age of Conspiracy

The Kids Are Not Alright — And We’re Pretending Everything’s Fine

The education system is not equipped to handle algorithmic influence, emotional manipulation, or online radicalisation — and yet we have never needed change more urgently.

We are failing a generation — not by accident, but arguably by choice. While students are being silently shaped, misled and manipulated by an unregulated media machine, the education system is busy patting itself on the back for hitting targets that ultimately, mean fuck all. The world outside the school is a psychological warzone of misinformation, algorithmic bias, and dopamine-driven outrage — and we respond with curriculum grids, box-ticking and ‘thought showers’. We are not preparing kids for reality. We are, unfortunately, complicit in their intellectual disarmament.

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Death by quote

Picture the scene: a dimly lit meeting room, the low hum of a projector, no air con, shit coffee from a polystyrene cup and the unmistakable stench of boredom lingering in the air. As the PowerPoint/Google slides blink into life, so do the cliché quotes that adorn each one, like shit on the underside of a public toilet seat. The scene is all too familiar in the world of education, where leadership seem to have a fondness for drowning their presentations in a sea of quotes. But are these verbal gems contributing to intellectual enlightenment, or are they merely veils of pseudo-intelligence? Spoiler alert…it’s the latter!

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